By Jan Lopatka PRAGUE (Reuters) – Milos Zeman, the longest-standing figure in Czech post-communist politics, won a final major battle on Saturday, showing off his strong political instincts to secure a second presidential term. Zeman, 73, bet on a populist anti-immigration stance and sniping at intellectual Prague elites to mobilize his base and gain a narrow win over Jiri Drahos, a mainstream pro-European academic, in the run-off vote. A trained economist, Zeman is the last of the heavyweights who shaped the country’s post-1989 history, a trio that includes Vaclav Havel, an anti-communist dissident and later president who died in 2011, and Vaclav Klaus, a former center-right prime minister and president in 2003-2013.

By Robert Muller and Jason Hovet PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech President Milos Zeman won a second term in a presidential election on Saturday, gaining the backing of voters for his tough stance against immigration and his courtship of Russia and China. In the run-off against strongly pro-European Union academic Jiri Drahos, Zeman scored 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent for his challenger. Zeman, 73, is the last prominent figure among active politicians from the country’s post-communist transitional period in the 1990s, and has shifted from being a center-left prime minister 16 years ago to being a president with leanings toward the far-right.GRAPHIC: tmsnrt.rs/2D3BO8e The vote showed Czech voters’ concerns over security despite a period of fast economic growth and rising wages.

Czech President Milos Zeman, who narrowly clinched a second five-year term on Saturday, has sown division with his strong anti-migrant and pro-Russian views, despite having vowed to be “the voice of all citizens” when first elected. The silver-haired 73-year-old cut down on his smoking and drinking after he became the Czech Republic’s first directly elected president in 2013, but he has stuck to his outspoken ways. A year after taking up the top job, the veteran leftwinger made clear his foreign policy preferences by visiting China and attending a forum on a Greek island that was organised by a Vladimir Putin ally who is a persona non grata in the United States.

By Robert Muller and Petra Vodstrcilova PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech billionaire Andrej Babis won a thumping victory in Saturday’s election as voters shunned traditional parties and gave a mandate to the anti-establishment businessman pledging to fight political corruption while facing fraud charges himself.(For a graphic of the Czech election click tmsnrt.rs/2vO4hPW) Babis’s ANO movement got 29.6 percent of the vote, nearly three times as much as anyone else in an election that saw a record nine parties secure seats in parliament’s lower house. Babis has promised to bring his business expertise to government. The dramatic power shift comes as the Czech Republic has enjoyed rapid economic growth, a balanced budget and the lowest unemployment in the EU.

By Robert Muller and Petra Vodstrcilova PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech billionaire Andrej Babis won a thumping victory in Saturday’s election as voters shunned traditional parties and gave a mandate to the anti-establishment businessman pledging to fight political corruption while facing fraud charges himself.(For a graphic of the Czech election click tmsnrt.rs/2vO4hPW) Babis’s ANO movement got 29.6 percent of the vote, nearly three times as much as anyone else in an election that saw a record nine parties secure seats in parliament’s lower house. Babis has promised to bring his business expertise to government. The dramatic power shift comes as the Czech Republic has enjoyed rapid economic growth, a balanced budget and the lowest unemployment in the EU.

A Czech zoo on Tuesday burnt 33 kilos (72 pounds) of rare rhino horns, including some it sawed off its own animals in the wake of a brutal attack on a French zoo. Poachers broke into the Thoiry zoo near Paris in March and killed a critically endangered white rhino, hacking off its horns and putting zoos across the world on high alert. The brazen attack prompted a zoo in the central Czech Republic city of Dvur Kralove nad Labem to remove and burn the horns from its herd.

PRAGUE (AP) — A Czech zoo is taking no chances after the recent killing of a rhinoceros at a wildlife park near Paris by assailants who stole the animal's horn — the zoo has started to remove the horns from its 21 rhinos as a precaution.

A Czech fugitive wanted in his homeland for knowingly spreading HIV to multiple victims has been arrested on a Thai resort island after living in the country for more than a year, police said Wednesday. Zdenek Pfeifer, 49, was detained at his apartment on the island of Phuket on Tuesday evening, Thai Interpol said in a statement. "Thai police will contact Czech Interpol once he has been prosecuted for local violations," Thai Interpol said, adding he was arrested for illegally overstaying his visa.